Back in August, Verizon turned heads when it said it would begin to use "Network Optimization" for those few customers still on the old unlimited data plans. In layman's terms, it meant that Verizon intended to throttle the speed of the top 5% of unlimited data users on LTE networks, something that's already in place on the carrier's aging 3G system. But today, the very first day that the policy was set to go into practice, the company seems to have backed down.

Sometimes watching American cell phone carriers is like observing a line of monkeys - see the whole JUMP/EDGE/NEXT/whatever Sprint calls their interest-free phone financing saga. Now it's come again, this time after AT&T announced a limited promotion that doubled the data on some of its shared family plans. Verizon has matched their prices with a MORE Everything promotion that starts tomorrow, October 2nd. For the same $130 price that AT&T is offering, pre-fees, Verizon is giving family plan users 30GB of data.

Verizon has announced an over-the-air software update for the DROID DNA that's going to make a few users upset. There's no reason to wonder if this latest firmware version will make it more difficult to achieve root access, for the carrier has put this little tidbit of information towards the top of the change log. The second, and perhaps most interesting, item on the list reads: Device root vulnerability issue has been resolved. That's pretty much all rooted users of the DROID DNA need to know about the 4.09.605.5 update.

Just like the original Moto X, AT&T customers were the first ones to get a taste of the new model on the customization site Moto Maker. But it looks like that carrier exclusivity isn't going to last anywhere near as long this time around: the official Verizon Wireless Twitter account said that Big Red versions would be available starting tomorrow. Just like the AT&T version, the on-contract model will cost $99.99 with a two-year commitment.

Last year Motorola announced the Droid phones alongside the Moto X, but this year the new Moto X is about to hit the shelves and there's still no official word on new Droid phones. However, a Google+ posting by HeloMotoHK claims to show the rumored Droid Turbo in all its glory. Yep, it still looks like a Droid.

Samsung makes a lot of tablets. So many in fact, that it can be hard to keep track of which are the entry-level and which are the premium ones. Tab Pro? Galaxy Tab? No, it's the Tab S series that you want to lay your hands on if at all possible. Verizon Wireless has finally started selling the LTE-equipped 10.5-inch version for a cool $600 off-contract.

It's that time of the month again, CyanogenMod ROM fans. In fact it's a bit past that time of the month, reportedly thanks to a heavy workload and the Labor Day weekend, but now that the CM11 monthly update is up to the M10 release, we won't hold it against the CyanogenMod Team. The biggest change to the M build is a brand new bug tracker app, which makes it easy for users to submit anonymized bug reports to CM along with a stacktrace whenever a system app crashes.

Verizon pre-announced its VoLTE service a few weeks ago, but now it's rolling out. Customers can finally start taking advantage of VoLTE calling starting today—that assumes people still make phone calls, which is debatable. You need to have a supported device of course, and there are still a few caveats.

As a personal user of the DROID RAZR M, I've got to say that Motorola's 2012 line of branded DROIDs have held up remarkably well. That's due in no small part to frequent and relatively speedy updates. The latest one doesn't come with a new version of Android (they're running 4.4.2 at the moment), but it does have a few security enhancements and improvements to the default messaging app.